Showing battle-readiness for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP declared its fifth candidate list on Sunday, taking its number of declared candidates to 402.
The party made some big moves like declaring 64 of the 74 seats it plans to contest in the biggest state of Uttar Pradesh, putting up star names like Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Lord Ram’s on-screen avatar Arun Govil from Meerut, UP.
BJP has dropped several MPs in its latest list of 111 candidates, including seven from Uttar Pradesh and four MPs from Bihar. The biggest names which were dropped included Union ministers VK Singh from Ghaziabad and Ashwini Chaubey from Buxar. Varun Gandhi was dropped from Sultanpur and UP minister Jitin Prasada was given this seat to contest. Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi will contest from her seat of Pilibhit. In West Bengal, the BJP has changed the seat of its former president Dilip Ghosh from Medinipur to Bardhaman-Durgapur. The Medinipur seat will be contested now by BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul.
Last-minute joinees in the BJP have also promptly got tickets. Former Calcutta High Court Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay will contest from Tamluk, industrialist Naveen Jindal will contest from Kurukshetra while Haryana minister Ranjit Chautala, who was an independent MLA, will contest from Hisar. The latter two joined the BJP minutes before the list was declared. Senior leader Tapas Roy who had quit the TMC will contest from Kolkata Uttar while Sita Soren will contest from Dumka. Sita is the sister-in-law of former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren. Arjun Singh who returned to BJP’s fold from TMC got a ticket from Barrackpur.
In Bihar, BJP has repeated many of its big names like Ravi Shankar Prasad, RK Singh, Giriraj Singh, Ram Krupa Yadav, Nityanand Rai, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjay Jaiswal and Radha Mohan Singh. BJP has declared all its 17 candidates in Bihar after the seat-sharing arrangement with the JDU and LJP was sealed. Senior BJP leader K Surendran has been chosen to take on Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad. After talks with the BJD collapsed, BJP has declared all 21 candidates in Odisha, including Sambit Patra from Puri and Aparajita Sarangi from Bhubaneswar — two seats on which the BJP and BJD could not arrive at a deal.
An interesting fight will also be seen in West Bengal's Krishnanagar where BJP has put up Rajmata Amrita Roy against Mahua Moitra of the TMC. A Sandeshkhali victim, Rekha Patra, has been given the BJP ticket from Basirhat.
first published: March 25, 2024, 09:59 IST
